Under court order, the Bush administration recently released their draft Federal Salmon Plan. The new administration plan for the Columbia and Snake rivers ignores science, wastes taxpayer dollars, further imperils endangered salmon, and could set a precedent that makes it difficult to recover other endangered species. Please take a minute to send a letter urging the Bush administration to do what is right - follow the science, recover wild salmon, and revive salmon-related jobs and economies.

Please click here to take action to protect and restore wild Snake River salmon:

BACKGROUND
Two centuries ago, the explorers Lewis and Clark were amazed at Pacific Northwest rivers teeming with millions of salmon. The legendary wild salmon and steelhead of the Snake and Columbia rivers have made important contributions to the economy, ecology, and culture of the Northwest from California to Alaska. But this national treasure is today threatened with extinction and needs your help to survive.

Born high in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, wild Snake River salmon and steelhead swim nearly 1,000 miles downstream to the Pacific Ocean, where they feed and grow strong enough for the tough journey back to their native streams. But all of the salmon's legendary persistence won't save them from extinction if the Bush administration finalizes a new draft Federal Salmon Plan. This new plan would abandon sound science and reduce protections for these endangered fish.

Despite the fact that only two Snake River sockeye salmon returned to their spawning grounds in 2003, the new draft Federal Salmon Plan would allow status-quo operations of the salmon-killing dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers - it even denies that the dams are a threat to the salmon's future. And the plan provides no pathway toward the best, and possibly only, way to recover wild Snake River salmon - removing four relatively low-value federal dams on the lower Snake River.

Suppressing sound science isn't just bad for salmon, it's bad for all endangered species and their habitats. The Bush administration's draft plan would set a precedent that could lower the prospects for imperiled species throughout the country.

Restoring Pacific salmon is an important environmental issue, and it's also an economic and cultural issue for the communities up and down the West Coast. These communities depend on healthy stocks of Snake and Columbia river fish to make a living. Restoring Snake River salmon and steelhead to harvestable levels would generate hundreds of millions of dollars and create thousands of jobs for commercial and sport fishermen from California to Alaska At the same time, a free-flowing lower Snake River would generate as much as $310 million in non-fishing recreation, like boating, hiking, and hunting.

Submit Your Comment Today! Now is the time to tell the Bush administration to scrap their weak draft plan and write a Federal Salmon Plan that will recover wild salmon and steelhead to abundant, self-sustaining, fishable levels. Such a plan must, at the very least, allow planning for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams. Take action today. Click here to send a letter!